More than a dozen aid workers have been killed or gone missing in Gaza over the past few days, several groups say, as Israel’s complete blockade of humanitarian aid neared the one-month mark amid its renewed military assault on the Palestinian enclave.
The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said Thursday eight of its staff had been killed in Gaza over the past week, while the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said nine of its emergency medical technicians (EMTs) have been missing since Sunday following an incident in which Israeli forces fired on ambulances and fire trucks in the southern Gaza governorate of Rafah.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said that it fired on the ambulances and fire trucks in Rafah because they were being used as cover by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters.
In a separate incident, Israeli strikes near a community kitchen in Gaza on Thursday killed a World Central Kitchen (WCK) volunteer and injured six others “as meals were being distributed,” according to the US-based non-profit.
In response, the IDF told CNN that the WCK incident is under review.
“The IDF is in contact with the organization to verify the details thoroughly,” it added in a statement.
The attacks come after Israel resumed its military campaign in Gaza on March 18, breaking a temporary ceasefire that had been in place since January. Israeli attacks have since killed at least 855 people and injured 1,869, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the strip.
The ministry reported on Friday afternoon that Israeli attacks had killed 41 people and injured 115 across the enclave over the past 24 hours.
The news also follows Israel’s decision before the ceasefire collapsed to block humanitarian aid from entering the enclave, in what it described as a move to pressure Hamas into accepting new terms for an extension of the ceasefire rather than proceed with phase two of the truce.
The UN and aid groups accuse Israel of violating international law by blocking the flow of aid into Gaza and of using starvation as a weapon of war. The same organizations have accused Israel of restricting or creating hurdles to the entry of aid throughout the war.
Noting the deaths of the UNRWA staff, the agency’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini called Thursday for the ceasefire to resume and for Israel to lift its blockade on aid.
“No humanitarian aid has entered Gaza for more than three weeks now,” Lazzarini said, noting that before the ceasefire collapsed between 500 and 600 aid trucks had been entering the strip on a daily basis.
“This is longest that Gaza has been without any supplies since the war began,” Lazzarini said.
Israel launched its war in Gaza following Hamas’ October 2023 attack in which militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage. Since then, Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians.
With the return to hostilities, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are once again at risk of “severe hunger and malnutrition,” the World Food Programme (WFP) warned in a statement on Thursday, stressing that its food stocks are enough to support its operations for a maximum of two weeks.
About 10 community kitchens were forced to close in Gaza since the ceasefire collapsed “due to hostilities and energy shortages,” according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Tuesday. The office also warned that supplies of cooking gas were available “only in extremely limited quantities at exorbitant prices,” leaving families with few options aside from the community kitchens.
UNRWA’s Lazzarini said parents are unable to find food for their children, hunger is increasing and the risk of disease is spreading.
“The siege must be lifted and crossings must re-open for a standard flow of humanitarian aid and commercial supplies,” Lazzarini said.
About 400 aid workers, including teachers, doctors and nurses, have been killed in Israeli attacks in the enclave since October 7, 2023, OCHA said in an update earlier this week.
The death toll includes 289 UN staff and 34 PRCS workers as well as 76 from other NGOs.
EMTs and Civil Defense workers missing
According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, its EMTs went missing in the Tel Sultan area of Rafah “after being besieged and targeted by Israeli forces” on Sunday.
It said its teams were only able to start searching for the missing staff on Thursday as it had previously been denied access to the area.
Gaza’s Civil Defense said that six of its staff also went missing after being dispatched to the same area last weekend following what it described as a “sudden incursion by the Israeli occupation forces, the killing and injuring of dozens, and the besieging” of PRCS vehicles.
The PRCS said they had recovered the body of one of the Civil Defense team members on Thursday.
The Gaza Civil Defense said it had encountered scenes of devastation in Rafah while searching for a team of missing emergency workers.
Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said Friday that the body of one emergency worker who was among a nine-strong team that went to Rafah on Sunday had been found.
Basal said that when Civil Defense and Red Crescent teams were finally granted access to the area they found “massive destruction” and widespread bulldozing.
“We found our vehicles and the Red Crescent vehicles destroyed,” and subsequently the body of one worker that had been buried by bulldozers was retrieved, Basal said.
The Israeli military told CNN its forces had opened fire at “suspicious vehicles” advancing toward troops without prior coordination, headlights or emergency signals during an operation against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants in southern Gaza last Sunday.
It said that it had “eliminated a number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists” by firing on the vehicles and condemned what it claimed was “the repeated use of civilian infrastructure by the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, including the use of medical facilities and ambulances for terrorist purposes.”
Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023, 19 PRCS members have been killed while on duty, according to the society.
“We cannot bear to add more names to this tragic list,” a spokesperson for the society said Thursday. “(We call) on the international community to take serious measures to protect our medical teams.”
The society said the search and rescue operation would resume Friday.
Volunteer killed as meals handed out
The World Central Kitchen said Israeli strikes near a community kitchen in Gaza on Thursday killed one of its volunteers and injured six others “as meals were being distributed.”
“Our hearts are heavy today as we mourn the loss of one of our volunteers in Gaza,” WCK said in a statement.
In April 2024, a series of Israeli military strikes killed seven WCK staffers in Gaza, drawing international condemnation and prompting a rare public acknowledgment from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a promise to investigate the “tragic incident.”
The US-based non-profit that focuses on fighting hunger around the world vowed Thursday to continue its work in the strip.
“We will continue to support community kitchens throughout the region and operate our field kitchens where possible, based on daily assessments,” it said in a statement. “We hope for peace for all and a lasting ceasefire.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
